Guilt and Change

       After all these years, I still make a lot of mistakes.  Within the last two months I've made two errors that I felt were rather large in my role as Co-Moderator of SF Presbytery.  The first one happened at a Presbytery meeting that went 3 hours longer than planned.  We have a number of minister and elder members of our Presbytery for whom English is not their first language.  Since the meeting was going so long, it was suggested that the translators be dismissed and I allowed the meeting to continue without translation.  I never should have done that.  My worry about the exhaustion of the translators does not excuse my failure to think of those for whom the meeting was no longer accessible once they did not have translation.  But when another pastor took the time to lovingly but clearly point out the error, I saw it. I apologized to the Presbytery, I learned from the mistake.  We are now working on a policy that will make sure such an error does not easily happen again.  We were able to take a mistake and bring some insight and change from it.

          Yesterday I made another such mistake.  I was officiating at an ordination of a pastor in a truly multicultural congregation.  And, as I do, I was talking extemporaneously about how connected we all are.  I used a word I often associate with that, Ubuntu, which I have understood to mean, "I am because we are."  I was immediately corrected, by someone from South Africa, whom I believed was upset that I had used the word and used it incorrectly.  And suddenly I realized that I had once again erred.  It is not my place to be using or defining terms for people who actually speak the language and are from the culture that uses the word I was attempting to use. Being called out in front of the congregation had enough of an impact on me that I left immediately after the service out of a sense of shame.  I didn't sleep last night, feeling that I had failed again in a major way.  My nighttime inner critic kept yelling at me that I really needed to just stop opening my mouth, because when I do, I make mistakes, some that I can't fix as easily as others.  This, for example, was a mistake that will be harder to correct since there were people from numerous communities attending the service.  

    I could go several places from here.  

    I could talk about Professor Loretta Ross and her teaching at Smith College on the subject of effective conversations.  She says that we need to stop being a "call out" and "cancel" culture.  These ways of approaching one another tend to tear us apart and shut us down rather than building communities of reconciliation, growth and belonging across our differences. We sabotage our happiness with anger and create barriers between people that do not need to be there.  Dr. Ross encourages, instead, a "call in" culture where we invite one another into relationships, into conversation, into learning and healing. In both of the situations I described above, what the confronters said was absolutely true and it is not in any way their responsibility to take care of me or my feelings.  I was at fault in both situations. And I choose to grow from both situations.  I choose to learn, and I will work to do better, to not "co-opt" language, for example. Still, the impact of the way each approached the situation carried the potential for very different responses. Neither response was wrong.  But one had greater potential for doing good and for moving towards reconciliation and healing. 

    I could also talk about how we move from that place of shame into a space of grace.  It was helpful to me after the first error to write the letter to the Presbytery.  I could take an active step towards owning my mistake, and could be part of the solution, to try to make sure a policy was developed in the Presbytery for when meetings go too long for our translators.  I could also work to make sure the documents we write (such as my letter) are translated appropriately.  I am still thinking through how to deal with my mistake from yesterday.  But when I see ways to step forward (probably starting with another letter), I will do so.  These actions help us to name the mistake, ask for forgiveness, step into repairing, reconciling, and growing.  They help us to claim the grace that is always offered. We can do so by recognizing our own movement and decisions to respond to the world with creative but important action.  If we respond instead with self-judgment and condemnation, we are often left paralyzed.    

    I could talk about how intentionally studying racism in the United States with my congregation for the last three years has not prevented me from making these mistakes and then name the reality that the systems we live within are so insidious that even when I am daily reading, studying, and learning, that next step of being intentional about removing my own complicity in the system will take a lot more work. I've lived like this over 50 years. Changing behavior will take time.  

    I could write about how in many ways we have not moved much as a country.  This last weekend my daughter graduated from high school.  Over 30 kids from her graduating class then went to her high school and vandalized it with racial slurs, homophobic graffiti and other signs of hate and anger.  They don't learn these behaviors in a vacuum.  Their behavior was a mirror reflecting the communities and families in which they've been raised.  I found it deeply disturbing.  It broke my heart to know that kind of hate and anger was acted out by so many young people right here in this community.  It should not have surprised me.  With all the reading we've been doing, it just plain shouldn't surprise me.  But I was hit hard.

      But where I think I really want to go with this is into a deeper conversation about how we use the unpleasant feelings that arise for us.  Do we allow the feelings of guilt or shame to keep us up at night?  Or do we take our mistakes and seek out creative ways to learn from them, make amends to anyone we've hurt, and move forward?  Feelings are a gift.  Or they can be, if we use them well.  But if we allow our anger to cause us to hurt others (or continue to hurt ourselves), or if we allow our shame to keep us from living in healthy ways, we are misusing the gifts.  Our feelings can become oppressive if we choose to let them.  

       Almost everything in this life can be used for good or for harm.  Even our feelings and thoughts.  But we have a choice in this, like everything else in life.  I invite us to step back from those strong feelings and make choices to see them differently, to engage with them differently, and to find the gifts in the pain to use for the good of all.

Our Children as Mirrors

             Yesterday when Youngest came home from school, I saw that she was wearing makeup.  She doesn't usually, so it surprised me.   I said, “you are wearing makeup.”  And she became defensive about it, saying she hadn’t been feeling confident that morning and thought it might help.  I told her there was no reason for her to feel defensive as I had no judgment about it. And I truly didn't!  I wore makeup in high school, and I occasionally wear it now. But she did not believe me.  And as I thought about the fact that she is often very private with me, often does not choose to share what she is thinking and feeling, I had the revelation that she is not sharing with me because she believes I will judge her.  “I don’t judge you,” I said.  “I think you are absolutely brilliant, creative, interesting, dedicated, hardworking, artistically gifted, hilarious (when you choose to be), and I adore you!  I don’t judge you.” 

          Her response was, “Yes, you do.  You judge everyone.  When you talk about other people, it’s always judgment.” 

               I was stunned.  I’ve often wondered if I share too much with the kids.  For the longest time, I was very careful about what I shared with them.  After all, it is not their job to take care of me, and I've always been very clear about that.  But after a conversation with a friend about this, I had started to think differently.  My friend had shared that she felt it was important for our kids to hear our struggles as it taught them to step out of themselves.  It gave them practice in listening to other people, and in being compassionate and empathetic to what others experience.  Also, two of my three kids are now "adults" at least in the sense that they are over 18.  My middle child frequently asks me what is going on with me, and when I don't have much to share, he pushes me on it.  He seems to genuinely want to know what is happening in my life, what I'm feeling and thinking.  So, especially with the older two, I have started to share more.  But Youngest sometimes hears these conversations, just as she often hears the conversations I have with David.  And while I have never seen or experienced myself as a judgmental person, I realized as I’ve thought about this that I am much quicker to share my frustrations or hurts at the hands of others, and slower to share the amazing good I see and experience at the hands of others.  That needs to change.  

      At first my reaction was "I will need to be more careful about what I share with the kids."  I envisioned myself "going quiet" in terms of my own personal struggles.  But I think that will not correct the mistake.  Instead, I think I need to be much more intentional about sharing the positive of people, the good I experience and see, than the negative.  This will not be a bad change.  I think about gratitude practices, and the spiritual and psychological disciplines of remembering each day what good has happened and what good has been experienced.  There is great power in these practices.  They help with depression, they help with healing.  As far as I can see there is no downside to sharing the good rather than the negative.  But focusing on the good, reporting the good, remembering to share where people have been kind and unexpectedly thoughtful: these are practices that will require a change in me.  The mirror that Youngest held up to me yesterday hurt.  But that mirror is an opportunity to grow.  One that I will accept as a challenge in my moving forward.

BUT Let Justice Roll Down

 

Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-24

 

Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD.  Why do you long for the day of the LORD?  That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light, pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.  Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

  

I have preached before on Amos when we did our prophets series, but it has come up again in our narrative lectionary, and Amos is one of the prophets that I appreciate the most, so we are going to look anew at some of these passages from Amos.  I threw in a couple extra verses that show more of Amos than we usually hear.  These are again hard passages, but I didn’t want to simply avoid them because they are difficult.  They show an angry God even more strongly than the original few verses for today.  They show a God who is promising to punish Israel, or the people of Israel for their behavior.  Hard words.  But these are words that call us to pay attention.

        Today’s passage in Amos is saying that God is angry, VERY angry with unjust behavior.  In specific, God is angry with the elite of Israel living in comfort and luxury, while the poor are suffering.  It doesn’t matter to God that these elite go to church, that they offer sacrifices to God, that they PRAISE GOD.  Again, it doesn’t matter that they praise God, serve God, or go to church.  I think this really gets to the heart of what Amos is about. God is saying, through Amos, that going to church, belief, even faith, is NOT what wins points with God.  What God cares about, consistently and fully, is your caring for and taking care of God’s people, in particular the poor and suffering people.  God is angry at the people who are hanging out with other rich people in lofty solemn church services and not caring for the poor.  God is angry at the offerings of wealth lifted up to God.  God wants those things given to God’s people, to the poor, to the disenfranchised, the outcast, the marginalized.  God is also pointing out that these religious, worshiping people are not superior to those around them.  They have become self-satisfied.  They believe they worship the right God, perhaps the ONLY TRUE God and they believe that because of it, they have nothing to fear. 

There are many Christians who take on superior attitudes of self-importance.  WE are the saved, WE are the ones who KNOW THE TRUTH.  WE ARE THE ONES who are God’s true children.  We don’t have to do anything or care about anyone outside of these walls because we are the chosen people of God.  But this passage convicts us.  It confronts this attitude.  To quote Amos, “Are your kingdoms, (your beliefs, your rituals) really better than those around you? .....I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up these people and all that is theirs.”  God says this to US!!!  To Christians, yes.  And to all who sit in pride and luxury while others are poor and suffering.

This is the clear, repetitive, redundant message of Amos.  It is the clear, repetitive, redundant message of all the prophets. 

But then the question comes up, as it did a few weeks ago when I preached on discernment, does God really punish people?  And I want to start by asking all of you.  Did God really cause the Israelites to be attacked, the elite to be sent into exile, the temple to be demolished?  Did God do this?  What do you think?  The question is not an easy one.  If you say, “no, God doesn’t do that” then you have to own that you are saying this despite all the Biblical prophets who say otherwise.  You are arguing against a large, huge chunk of the Bible.  If you say, “yes, God does do this” then you may have to rethink your image of God.  Is a God who destroys people, any people, all good?  And what about a God who wipes out whole countries of people, including many who are innocent, who themselves are poor, or are children, or are marginalized.  According to the prophets and much of the Bible, this is what God does.  Is this the God you worship? 

Ultimately, you will have to answer this for yourselves.  I can’t tell you what to believe, what is the “right” thing to think.  But you are my church family.  And I will tell you how I answer that question for myself.  As always, I am more than happy to continue this conversation with you after church or at another time as well.

I believe that these passages are descriptive of a reality.  That reality is that we reap what we sow.  I’m not saying the world is fair.  Too many times criminal people continue to get richer while the hard working honest but poorer folk suffer.  But I still believe that we reap what we sow as a people, as a humanity, sometimes in grossly exaggerated, horrible, violent ways.  I think about kids who are bullied, picked on, harmed by bigger, meaner kids at school.  Sometimes those victims get angry enough that they pick up a weapon themselves and we have tragedies like at Columbine.  Did the victims of that violence deserve to be killed?  No, of course not.  But they were part, perhaps of meanness, perhaps of not standing up to meanness, they were part of the spark that ignited something that eventually became distorted and evil.  I think about kids who were abused as children who grow up and abuse others in turn.  Again, not a good thing, but what was reaped was sown as the violence continued. 

I believe this happens at the larger levels as well.  In countries where the poor are pushed down and deeply oppressed, eventually there are bloody revolts and revolutions where the oppressed stand up to their oppressors and overturn things.  While the war happens, things are again, much worse for everyone.  There is death, there is mayhem.  Things are bad.  But the fires didn’t and don’t start without sparks.  So too between countries.  When a country decides to be a bully with a self-satisfied superior attitude, eventually other countries get tired of it, ban together and there are wars.  When people of different faith traditions choose to be self-satisfied and smug about their religion being the “only” way, they may convert a few, but I know they generally turn off and even make enemies of many more people than they convert. 

On the positive side, too, humanity reaps what it sows.  A few years ago as I was waiting at a stop sign, I saw a man in a car up ahead of me roll down his window, try to say something to the car next to him, finally jump out of his own car, going behind and closing the trunk of the car next to him, whose trunk had flown open while we were all driving.  It was a small act of caring for him to shut his neighbor’s trunk.  But I found myself smiling at the small act, cheered by it, even moved by it.  That act of caring touched more than the people in the car next to him, for it touched many of us who watched it as well.  It reminded me of other times when people have stopped for no reason except to be neighborly, have offered a hand to help, have by their caring touched many lives in a positive way. 

I’m reminded of a Chinese Proverb:

Where there is light in the soul, there is beauty in the person.

Where there is beauty in the person there is harmony in the home.

Where there is harmony in the home there is honor in the nation.

Where there is honor in the nation there is peace in the world.

Our faith tells us that we are all connected.  And everything we do matters, affects the world.  Our faith tells us that in serving others we serve ourselves, not the other way around.  And I believe that plays out in our psyche as well as on a tangible level.  When we focus all our efforts on caring for ourselves, or even on caring just for those “like” us - who don’t really need the love or the resources, we may have millions, but it is empty.  The thrills wear thin after awhile and the silence that is left is devoid of meaning or love. In contrast, when we reach out with love and care, we may not have millions of dollars in our pockets, but we have hearts full of meaning, purpose and love.  How could we be richer than that?   We are all connected.  When your life is just, so is mine.  When yours is not, mine is empty and uneasy as well.  I believe the prophets described this reality.  They described a world in which the evils of humanity hurt and harm, and the good in humanity also can spread with grace and love.

That still doesn’t answer the question, though, of where God is in this.  Or rather, where I believe God is in this.  I believe that God is angry at injustice.  I believe God is disappointed in injustice.  God has given us the gifts we need to care for one another, and I believe it saddens, hurts and enrages God to see us serving ourselves rather than others.  I believe that we see the effects of that injustice when we look at Jesus on the cross, crucified because people were threatened by his call to love neighbor as self, threatened by the truth that we are connected and that we are therefore called to love each other in the same way we love ourselves and to give up what we have to actively follow Christ.  I believe the cross shows us where God is in the face of that injustice.  God suffers with the suffering.  God cries with the abandoned.  God calls out for truth and justice with the oppressed.

But I also don’t believe that God stays there.  God raises new life out of that death.  God brings hope and justice out of the unjust situations.  Even for the Israelites.  Just a short time after the book of Amos was written, the Israelites were almost entirely wiped out.  But out of that empty place, God, love, justice was the force that raised them again, returned them again, began their people again in Israel.  God resurrects.  God brings life out of death.

Do I believe that God punishes people?  No.  Even if you take a more literal approach to scripture, we have the story of Noah in which God makes a strong promise never to destroy people again.  But still, I believe punishment or emptiness comes, not from God, but it comes, none the less, to those who serve themselves rather than seeking to love, seeking to care.  Fortunately, even in those times God’s promise of new life and new beginnings is there for all of us, every day, in every way.  Let us try in all that we do to seek out that life, for others, for ourselves, for all creation. 

I want to end by reading you the very last part of the book of Amos. 

Amos: Chapter 9: 11-15

“In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent.  I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the LORD, who will do these things.

 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman

and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,”

says the LORD your God.

AMEN.

What really matters?

     As I was getting dressed this morning, I made the unusual (for me) choice to dress down for work.  I often wear jeans on the days our hiking group walks but otherwise I usually dress up in "business professional" wear.  The reality is, though, that I really prefer what is comfortable to what looks good.  Maybe in part this is because I'm just not a really visual person.  I understand my world primarily kinesthetically and secondarily through hearing.  Vision is somewhere pretty far down the list for me, and so, more than most people, I just don't care about appearance.  Those of you who know me well know this.  I don't wear make-up, I don't spend time on my hair, I don't wear jewelry or paint my nails.  Almost all of my clothing is either gifts or hand-me-downs, and all of it is old.  The dress I wore to church on Sunday I was given when I was ordained 25 years ago.  The boots I'm wearing today were a gift when we moved to Ohio 13 years ago... you get the idea.

    None the less, as I was getting dressed this morning and decided to wear jeans instead of nicer pants, and a t-shirt under a sweater, I had to wrestle with myself a bit about it.  I kept remembering an incident at one of the other churches I served years ago.  That congregation had an evening praise service that was more focused on younger families and children.  It was, intentionally, a very informal service.  So we would all come wearing jeans and whatever clothing was comfortable.  We had a visitor come one evening for this service, but when she walked in and saw that those attending were dressed casually, she was so offended she turned around and left, commenting to the greeter by the door that "it's disrespectful to God when you don't dress up for church!"  It was a flippant remark made by someone I never saw before or since that evening.  None the less it stayed with me and its weight was reinforced for me by other comments other people have since made in my hearing.  I heard someone else say, for example, that he didn't respect another pastor because that pastor didn't dress up for church.  

    From a scriptural perspective, I can't support these attitudes.  1 Samuel 16:7b says: "God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but God sees into the heart.”  In proverbs 31:30 it says "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain."  And maybe the most clear passage is 1 Peter 3:3-4 which says, "Don’t try to make yourselves beautiful on the outside, with stylish hair or by wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes.  Instead, make yourselves beautiful on the inside, in your hearts, with the enduring quality of a gentle, peaceful spirit. This type of beauty is very precious in God’s eyes."

    From a theological perspective I also struggle to understand this.  Do we really think that God cares about what we wear?  Or how much money or time we put into our clothing?  Amos, among other prophets makes it really clear that what God cares about is our service to one another, our caring for the "least of these" rather than how we adorn ourselves.  

    That being said, I do understand the thinking of those for whom this is important.  Taking the time to put on your best says that the one you are going to see, to worship, to spend time with is important to you, is someone you value.  So the choice to dress up for church is a choice to make a statement that God is worth your best, worth your time, worth the effort it takes to dress up.  

    I understand this.  I also understand that God knows that sometimes the best I can do is to be the best I can be that day in terms of my behavior rather than what I am wearing, and that sometimes wearing what will be comfortable, what will not be distracting and need my constant care to make sure I stay tidy and neat, is the best way for me to be the best I can be.  The bottom line for me, again, is that people come with different values and different things that take priority in their lives on different days.  For me, today, the priority has not been on looking presentable, but on being able to be my best in terms of how I emotionally present on a very hectic and busy day.  

    This may feel like a small and insignificant thing, but my thoughts around all of this led to thinking more deeply about judgment on the whole. We are so quick to judge those around us who make different choices than we make.  Perhaps we are needing their affirmation of the choices we have made in order to feel okay.  Perhaps we need them to think and act and look and make choices that mirror our own so we feel good about our own choices.  Perhaps we need to be critical and then to feel superior about our choices just to feel okay about ourselves.  I don't really know.  But I do know that we don't get very far by focusing on what others are doing or failing to do. We don't grow through our judgments of others.  We grow by focusing on our own choices and actions.  The choices others make can help us to see alternatives and to think through what really matters to us.  But determining that the only way we can make the best choices for ourselves is to judge other people's choices is false.  There is room for diversity, there is room for differences in our thinking, acting, and living.  

    I can't change the judgments that come my way about my clothing choices or anything else.  But I can use my experience of those judgments to remind me that similarly judging others is not what I choose to do.  It is not kind.  It is not loving.  And judging can waste a lot of space in my heart and head.  I'm not saying I won't ever be judging.  Unfortunately it is in the nature of our culture to be critical of those around us.  But I will work harder to put those judgements aside when they do come and to just focus on what I will choose for myself.  Today that's the best I can do.

Expectations of Clergy And Other People of Faith

            I've heard several people lately say something to the affect that they left the church at some point in their lives because of the way other people in the church behaved.  They left because of a pastor, or because of the way members of the congregation behaved towards the pastor, or they left simply because members of the congregation were unkind towards other members of the congregation.  And the conclusion of each of these folk was something along the lines of "people in the church shouldn't behave that way."  After all, if we strive to follow God, shouldn't that make us better?

            I've been sitting with this question for years, actually.  It's common that people leave because of the hypocrisy they see in the church: so after a pastor messes up, or after mean people in the church do something unkind, or because of the judgmental stance of some churches or congregations.  Shouldn't we who profess to follow a loving, compassionate, gracious God work harder to do right?  To avoid hurting people?  To build people up and care about those who need our care?  Shouldn't our weekly time remembering what we are called to do and who we are called to be make some difference in our lives?

          My answer has changed over the years, some, but here it is as I think now:  Yes, our time in the church should make us better.  But it should not make us better than other people.  It should just make us better than we ourselves might have been had we not been in that place of remembrance and support for being the best we can be.  None of us will ever be perfect.  And I don't think we can ever compare ourselves to other people.  The best we can do is compare ourselves to ourselves.  Have we grown to be more loving, more forgiving, more gracious than we were before?  Or than we might otherwise have become?    

        I think about what Jesus himself said on this subject, (Luke 5:31-32): "Jesus answered, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do.  I didn’t come to call righteous people but sinners to change their hearts and lives.”  

        People come to church for many reasons.  But for many of us, it is because we are striving to be the people God calls us to be and we know we need the help and support of the community, of the time of worship and joint commitment to serve the poor and oppressed.  We need the time together to both reflect and work together to bring justice and peace to the world.  We can't do it on our own, or certainly we can't do it as well on our own.  For those who can, more power to them.  For the rest of us, our time in community and in church is essential for us to be the best we can be, for us to continue on the journey to be more whole, more caring and more loving.  That's all we can do.  We will never reach that goal, we will never be perfect.  But church allows us to grow towards it, to remember to self-reflect and work harder to be better.

        Some of what angers people is how big the mistakes are that some people within churches make.  I understand that.  But I have two responses to this.  First, I don't think God ranks "mistakes" or "sins" (to use a churchier word) in the same way that we do.  In the ten commandments, for example, murder is not listed as a worse sin than forgetting to take a day of rest.  I want you to think about that for a minute.  Murder is not ranked higher in the ten commandments than forgetting to honor the Sabbath.  There's no "ranking" of sins in scripture.  WE do that.  WE rank things and sometimes we really get those rankings off in some very strange ways.  Some Christians think that loving someone they have decided is inappropriate is worse than murder, for example.  We know this because they will KILL LGBTQ folk and feel justified in doing so.  But God wants wholeness for us and that means working for good in every aspect, working towards love and care, compassion and understanding in every way.  When we fail, we fail.  God forgives and we move on, hopefully having learned from the mistake.  

         The second thing I want to say about that is that again, we cannot be comparing people against other people: only against themselves.  And since we do not know what they would have been like had they NOT been in church, who are we to say that church has made no difference for them?  We can't know this.  

        Churches are human creations.  And as such they will be imperfect just as humans are imperfect.  They are there to build up, to honor God, to create community, to encourage us to be the church in the world, lifting up the oppressed, empowering the poor.  We who are in the church are part of that.  But because we are part of it, church will reflect our gifts, and our weaknesses.  We continually strive to do better, to make church better.  But it will never be perfect just as we as individuals will never be perfect.  

         I say again, church will make no person perfect.  It just won't.  But it can help.  At least it can help some of us.  And that's enough for me.    

Judgments are so easy

        I participated in a small 24-hour clergy spiritual retreat over the last day (through zoom).  The woman leading the retreat was talking this morning about judgment.  Her point was that judgment is easy, but that it is not where we will find God.  She began by asking us to look at her as she described herself as a cis-woman, white, heterosexual, upper middle-class,  never divorced, never poor, never dealt with law enforcement in a negative way, never been in trouble legally, a dog-owner, mother, pastor of the same church for 18 years ... you get the idea.  She was telling us that because of her location and situation, there were many things that she could never claim to truly understand, but that she has a call, as we all do, to be open and compassionate towards ourselves and especially towards others who have different life experiences.  

    What was interesting for me is that I was having a hard time not judging her.  I felt that she was bragging about the facts, for example, that she had never been poor, never had a negative encounter with the law, and never been divorced.  And I kept thinking of a line from the movie Leap of Faith in which the main character said, "Would you want a virgin priest telling you how to fix your marriage?  No!  Would you want some teetotaler who had never had a problem with the bottle telling you how to give up your addictions? NO!"  And I kept thinking, how could I ever trust a person who had never struggled and who assumed they had their blessings because they'd earned them to be able to support me when I had struggled through hard and difficult times.  And then I felt angry.  There is such a strong inclination in all of us to assume that we have the good things that we have because we have earned them, because we have done something to obtain those blessings.  From that place of assuming our good things are because we deserve them, it is not a big leap to assuming that others are lacking those same good things because they don't deserve them.  We forget all the help, all the things we've been given since birth (since before birth, actually) that put us where we are and strongly affect where we can go with our lives, what paths our lives follow and what resources we have at any one time.  We forget this and it becomes very, very easy to judge others' situations.  And so I found myself really put off by this woman doing what I felt was boasting in order to teach we-who-have-suffered how to not judge others, and how to re-center and re-claim our lives in a healthier way.  

    But I quickly realized that, as she was talking about not judging, that I was judging her, this woman I really didn't know.  I realized that I had just assumed a whole host of feelings and emotions (hearing "bragging" behind her words, which may or may not have actually been there), as well as a whole life situation (that she had never really suffered, for example).  And I remembered, as I prayed and meditated, listening for God's words for me this morning, that our call whenever we are judging is to look deeper into ourselves.  So I dove into my own feelings to look at why I was making these assumptions about her.  And I realized that these thoughts and feelings I was assigning to this woman were feelings that I had, at one time, held myself.  I admit, with great shame, that there was a point in time when I, too, judged people who had been divorced, feeling that somehow I "did relationships" better.  There was a time, too, when I had assumed that people who struggled financially probably just weren't as intelligent and didn't have as much common sense and that this was at least a part of their poverty.  There was a time in my own life when I judged people who bought fast food for their children as unintelligent, uncaring, or even lazy parents.  I prided myself on my UC Berkeley education, on my doctorate, on my ability to save money, not go into debt, and own a house without depending on others for help.  I prided myself on buying only organic foods for my children, leaving the television off in favor of playing with the kids outside and reading books.  The kids had lessons: music, dance, and I thought there was no other way to raise them.  I felt good about my choices to work hard to take care of the environment, not using resources that I knew were damaging to the larger world, even if that meant buying more expensive items, bringing my own bags everywhere, not using "one-use" items, while still being generous to my community and to others.  I thought people who didn't make these choices were lacking in genuine compassion for the world, for others.  They were cold hearted and greedy, in my opinion, and their vision was very short-sighted.

    And then my own world had fallen apart.  I had to deal with abusive law officers, and a business-legal system that is mercenary and is not really about justice.  I became a divorced parent with sole custody of my three young children, working two jobs in order to support my kids, running through the McDonald's drive through at times because there just wasn't time to make dinner, there wasn't energy to get to the organic store; buying the cheapest foods, not the healthiest foods, because I had to stretch my lone salary to feed my family, sometimes using the "electronic babysitter" television for the kids when I just needed a nap and had been worn to the limit by my responsibilities, my jobs, and the deep grief of loss. The lessons I had insisted they take were mostly cut because I had neither the resources nor the ability to get them to those lessons or to make sure they practiced; and I even had to rely on financial help from extended family to be able to relocate and start again back home in the ultra-expensive Bay Area.  All of this forced me to reevaluate so many of my judgments, so many of my assumptions, so much of my mistaken "pride".  I got it now that sometimes divorce is the necessary choice for so many reasons.  Sometimes it's the brave choice, sometimes it's the most loving choice for our children.  This doesn't mean we chose badly in the first place and it doesn't mean we weren't deeply committed when we got married, or that we hadn't worked hard on our marriage.  Things change, situations change and sometimes our choices and decisions must change accordingly.  I got it now that sometimes people just do what they have to do to survive and that this doesn't always include an ability to buy more expensive but healthier foods, or consistent home-prepared meals.  I understood now that the pressures of one's life sometimes mean that we make less than ideal choices for our kids, including things like screen time instead of reading and playing with them outside all the time, or being able to buy them and take them to further education opportunities in the form of lessons.  I got it that life happens to people.  And the best we can do may not look the same as it does for people with more or different resources, but it is still the best we can do and we should celebrate and honor that rather than judging it. 

    I have often said that one of the challenges, but also one of the very deepest gifts of my life is that whatever I judge, I later am called on to face in my own life.  And that time of terrible hardship taught me so much, not only about myself, but also about other people who have not had easy lives.  

    I thought about all of this as I sat there in judgment of this person I did not know.  And I realized, once again, that if I chose to pay attention, to be "curious" about my own judgments (rather than heaping more judgment into the situation by judging myself for my judgments) that those feelings and assumptions had much to teach me, once again.  They called me to remember, to look deeper, and to let go.  They called me once again to release any shame I felt both for the judgments I had previously made, but also for the choices I later had to make to survive, to help my kids, and to walk through each day of that nightmare time.  

    I am grateful for all the challenges I have dealt with in my life because I do think each one of those hardships has given me more compassion, understanding and grace towards others who are struggling.  But I can also strive for compassion towards those who have not had these same experiences.  Until they have walked in the shoes of deep struggle, they may not see in the same way.  That is not their fault, that is simply the reality of the deep gifts of struggle.  

    It is so easy to judge.  But those judgments are voices calling us to look deeper at our own lives, to have compassion for ourselves as well as others, and to choose grace instead.  Be curious.  Look deep.  Let go of judgment.  Choose compassion instead.

Too Much Judgement

          Over my life-time we have been steadily learning that punishment is not nearly as effective (if it is effective AT ALL) as a combination of positive reinforcement and natural consequences.  We've learned that beating on children, for example, does not improve behavior, but teaches kids to be bullies themselves.  We've learned that natural consequences (you break a toy and then you no longer have it,  you are mean to a friend and you lose that friendship, you spill and you have to clean it up yourself) have a much bigger impact on all of us.  We learn when there are consequences for our actions that are natural.  What children and all of us learn when we are "punished" for things we've done wrong is more to hate, distrust, fear and seek revenge towards the ones who have punished us.  We've learned this, and in many ways we are beginning to live that out more and more fully.  The best parents I know often use mistakes as teaching opportunities, seeing errors as growing and learning experiences rather than as "sins" that need punishment.  But in other ways, we continue to use the archaic and ineffective methods of punishment in dealing with "mistakes".

    With children, for example, we still use some truly ineffective punishments.  I read an article yesterday that went into detail about something I had long ago come to believe: that suspensions and expulsions just teach kids to act out more: they get out of school, the school has made it clear that they don't want the kids there, often the child gets to be home alone while their parents are working, and what kids have learned from this is that the school authorities don't listen, care, or really values them as human beings.  They are being sent away because they aren't wanted.  No one has taken the time to work with them on what went wrong or how to do things differently, they've just dismissed the child.  What child will work harder for those who just dismiss them?  What child will change their behavior when it is clear that they get rewarded with time off when they act out?  It makes no sense.  And studies are finally catching up and showing this to be true.   

    I've also mentioned before that studies also show (see previous posts) that our entire retributive justice system just creates the criminals we are somehow hoping to change by these punitive responses to crimes.  Restorative justice, in contrast, which focuses on natural consequences, healing for the victims and for the perpetrators, restoration of relationships and reconciliation, in great contrast leads to MUCH lower recidivism rates and actually makes a positive difference for all involved.

    But while I've talked about both of the above in detail in the past, I've been thinking about the other ways in which we continue to live out the mistaken thinking that judging, condemning and punishing others is the way to get others to change in the ways we want.

    For example, employee evaluations have, historically, been opportunities for anonymous people to slam someone else rather than effective and helpful opportunities for constructive feedback.  Often, they have not offered helpful critique that allow for growth and change.  And the anonymity of them means that the person receiving the criticisms can not follow through or ask questions that would allow for further clarity or growth.  Additionally, the anonymity of these critiques also encourages normally sane people to take advantage of their "hidden" status to express opinionated, judgmental and often harsh or unkind ideas without recourse or consequences.  Often these are simply the expression of likes and dislikes rather than genuine helpful feedback that would encourage growth.  My own experience with these kinds of evaluations has also been that I'll receive one evaluation with a comment like "Don't talk so loud!" while another writes, "You need to speak up!" or one saying, "Speak more slowly and calmly!" while another says, "You need to be more animated!" Even less helpful are generalizations that offer no specifics, "I don't like her sermons." or "She doesn't lead well."  All of these leave me without any real way to address opposing or non-specific complaints.  

    But even more basic to our current lives is the "dislike" buttons on all social media platforms.  What does "dislike" communicate after all?  It says absolutely nothing that is helpful.  It does not say WHY a person dislikes something.  It doesn't communicate if there was something specific that was not appreciated or if it was the entire thing.  Often people cannot even see on these platforms who it is that said they "disliked" whatever it was.  And more and more I wonder why we have this option.  I have been listening to some incredible music on YouTube lately.  But I always see in these posts a number of "dislikes".  Why do people listen to those posts if they don't like that kind of music?  Why do people bother to be critical and judging at all of a post that may not have been meaningful to them, but which could be so meaningful to so many others?  How are these snap, unclear, and blanket "dislikes" in any way productive, or helpful, or meaningful?

    We are struggling as a country with increased divisions.  I think part of this is a simple failure to communicate with one another.  But a bigger part is that we make quick and full judgments that we don't explain, don't think through and which do not serve those we judge or ourselves either for that matter.  This is a pattern, this is part of our culture, and it seems to bleed into every part of our society.

    There is a reason Jesus said, "do not judge lest ye be judged."  When a society is more focused on judging than on understanding, on condemnation instead of compassion, on tearing one another down, punishing, hurting, seeking revenge, rather than working to build up, communicate, create bridges of reconciliation and healing, then we are doomed to continue these divides that will tear us all apart.

    Bottom line?  We are far too judgmental.  And we are far too quick to "punish" rather than to heal.  Until we get this, until we change, we are heading down a very dangerous path.  God save us all! 

Choosing to be who we are choosing to be...

          I'm just ending a two week stay-cation.  I really needed the break.  This time has called forth a lot from me, people are stressed and acting that out, and I needed to step back, remember who I am and, more importantly, Whose I am, regroup, re-center, re-focus.  I've had many thoughts emerge that I will be writing about over the next few weeks, but for today I want to talk about people's behavior once again.

          I was driving down the road a week ago with my family.  The kids were in the back seat, David and I in the front.  Someone pulled up next to me and started screaming at us " *&!-ing homosexuals!"  I don't know why.  The kids just laughed: they aren't sure why that would be considered an insult, which I take as a good sign.  But whenever extreme anger comes my direction, it tends to upset me and I sit with it and in it for some time.  I can't just shake it off, or laugh it off, as the kids did.  I want to know why people are so angry.  I want to know what about my family of five just driving in our little car offends them.  I want to know why they chose those particular words.  

          Inevitably I also come to a place where I wonder about what the angry people were hoping to accomplish by screaming at strangers and just calling them names which can give us no possible understanding of why they are angry or what they are wanting to be different.  And I come back again to the thought that we have a choice about what we contribute in this life-time.  On the balance sheet of life, do we give more positives to the world or more negatives?  Do we empower, support and lift one another up with kindness and love, or do we squash, harm ,and destroy?  What do we want our legacies to be?  What do we want to choose to leave here as our mark on this world?  We don't get to live forever.  We have little time with which to grace the lives of those with whom we travel.  So what do we want our contributions to be?

         But as I sat with it this time, I thought about my own actions in this world.  I often think big-picture about my own actions: what kind of carbon foot-print am I leaving?  How am I contributing to the over-all health of the planet by driving my car or planting trees?  How do my shopping purchases help or harm the poorest of the poor?  How can I be part of the solutions when dealing with climate change rather than adding to the increasing destruction of a fragile planet?  How can I confront racism in my almost-entirely-white congregation?  

       But this time I found myself thinking instead about littler things.  I heard echoed in a comment of one of my children negative words that I said first: words that were judgmental and attacking, that encouraged looking at the faults of another rather than the gifts, words that were dismissive and pridefully self-righteous.  I heard a stance of annoyance and frustration with the inevitable challenges in life, rather than wonder and delight at the beauties of our world and the gifts of the people in our communities.  And I realized that we do indeed develop habits, fall into patterns, that determine our influence in this life time; an influence of good or an influence that is more negative.  Do we focus on what is wrong about others, what is irritating to us, what is a problem for us?  Do we condemn and put down those who are different from us?  Or do we seek to find the good, the wondrous, and emphasize it and support it?  Do we teach our children to be negative and catty about others?  Or to look for what is beautiful and true and good in our differences?   This isn't to say that we ignore problems.  But can we reframe them in terms of judging actions rather than people, and on what we can do to help, rather than on what is bad and feels unsolvable? 

      When we have been challenged and attacked, it is easy to respond in kind.  But is our goal to return what has been given to us, or to rise above, to be better, to grow and contribute what is right and good to our world?  To make changes based not on judgements, but on wisdom, learning, and a desire to contribute what is good?

        I recognize in my own life that this is a growing edge.  I need to be better at focusing on the good, at rising above the hate and anger that is around us, at choosing in my interactions with the world to give what is grace-filled and loving rather than what is defensive, destructive, angry, or harmful.  This has to start with the little things.  And it has to begin with "me."

Saving Face

Mark 6:1-29

               In the book and movie, “The Help” we meet a young woman, Elizabeth, who is really a child trying to be an adult.  She has a young daughter whom she doesn’t actually like and to whom she is truly unkind.  Her “help”, Aibileen, cares for her daughter instead, so much so that the young, two-year-old daughter even says to Aibileen at one point, “you’re my real mama.”  But the young mother has other problems as well, and one of those is that she desperately wants to be loved and valued by her friend, Hilly, who is bossy, pushy, demanding and the clear leader of her group.  So when Hilly insists that Elizabeth fire Aibileen (or rather when Hilly herself fires Aibileen), even though Elizabeth knows it is wrong, knows that it will only hurt both her daughter and herself, knows that she cannot possibly care for her daughter on her own, she allows Hilly to act, she allows Hilly to fire the only person who ever cared for her daughter at all. 

               This is mirrored in the book by another situation.  The mother of the main character has had a helper the entire life of her adult daughter.  Constantine raised the main character, loved her, made her the person that she is.  But when the mother has a racist but highly respected member of her community at the house for lunch, and the community member is aghast at the place Constantine has in the family, she too is fired.  The main character’s mother “saved face” by allowing the unthinkable, unacceptable, and unjust result of losing a valued member of her own family because she could not bare the judgement of another person, a person she respected.

               This is similar to the story we heard in Mark today.  Herod had made a promise, a really stupid, impulse promise or oath.    And so when it comes down to a choice between honoring a promise in order to save face in front of his guests, or sparing a man’s life – and not just any man, but a man he actually valued and respected,  Herod chose to save face. 

               We get confused about what is truly important.  We think that the promises we make are sacred, and they are.  But the relationships we have with people are MORE sacred.  The choice to love and to have compassion and to care for ALL people, that is much, much MORE sacred.

I’m reminded of a story in which a holy man was meditating beneath a tree at the crossing of two roads. His meditation was interrupted by a young man running frantically down the road toward him. “Help me,” the young man pleaded. “A man has wrongly accused me of stealing. He is pursuing me with a great crowd of people. If they catch me, they will chop off my hands.” The young man climbed the tree beneath which the sage had been meditating and hid himself in the branches. “Please don’t tell them where I am hiding,” he begged. The holy man saw with the clear vision of a saint that the young man was telling him the truth. The lad was not a thief. A few moments later, the crowd of villagers approached, and the leader asked, “Have you seen a young man run by here?” Many years earlier, the holy man had taken a vow to always speak the truth, so he said that he had. “Where did he go?” the leader asked. The holy man did not want to betray the innocent young man, but his vow was sacred to him. He pointed up into the tree. The villagers dragged the young man out of the tree and chopped off his hands. When the holy man died and stood before Judgment, he was condemned for his behavior in regard to the unfortunate young man. “But,” he protested, “I had made a holy vow to speak only the truth. I was bound to act as I did.” “On that day,” came the reply, “you loved vanity more than virtue. It was not for virtue’s sake that you delivered the innocent man over to his persecutors, but to preserve a vain image of yourself as a virtuous person.”

Again, we see this with Herod.  He, too, had an innocent man killed because he’d made a stupid, stupid promise.  He did not expect it to be taken to such an extreme.  But he followed through on his promise because saving face, keeping his oath, was more important to him than another human’s life.  He could justify this to himself by declaring that the law required that he fulfill his oaths.  And it did.  Lev 19:12 reads: You must not swear falsely by my name, desecrating your God’s name in doing so; I am the Lord.” Num 30:2 says, “When a man makes a solemn promise to the Lord or swears a solemn pledge of binding obligation for himself, he cannot break his word. He must do everything he said.” And Deut 23:21 says “When you make a promise to the Lord your God, don’t put off making good on it, because the Lord your God will certainly be expecting it from you; delaying would make you guilty.”  But Herod used the law, he used the law as an excuse and as a justification to do evil. 

Jesus behaves in great contrast to Herod, to the monk in my story, to the examples I gave from the Help.  Jesus, in contrast, breaks laws, and even the ten commandments, when to follow those laws would be to act unjustly. For example, one of the ten commandments was about not breaking the Sabbath but Jesus broke it, again and again when a relationship, when a human being’s well-being was at stake.  He picked grain on the sabbath, he healed on the Sabbath.  He made it so clear, again and again, where the priorities had to be.  And he commanded us not to do the stupid things that would put us in that bind between fulfilling the law and caring for one another because he knew we were not strong, that we get confused and that it is easier for us to follow laws than to obey the ultimate law of love.  He knew that we would twist the rules and use them to harm others.  As Jesus himself said, “The Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath.”  The Law was made as a guide to help us live lives of love.  But we twist is, as we see done again and again. 

               People call Christians Hypocrites.  They do this because they see, clearer than we do in the midst of our bad choices, that we fail to follow the ultimate law of love.  Jesus calls us to love.  But Christians often get so caught up in following the letter of the law that they use it to bully, harm, hurt, kill and destroy other humans. 

               So Jesus tried to explain, again and again, “You have heard it said,” he said and then he would quote a law.  (all in Matthew 5).  Jesus understood our inability to discern when faced with conflicting values and conflicting needs in a situation.  He tried to prevent some of those by increasing the call, the need, for a disciplined observance in these situations. 

“You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  But I say to you that you must not oppose those who want to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well.  When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt, let them have your coat too.  When they force you to go one mile, go with them two.  Give to those who ask, and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you.”  This is an attempt to stop our revenge actions, our justifications of harm towards others with the excuse that “they started it first”.

 “You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?  Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.”  Here, too, Jesus takes a law that was just but has been used to harm and expands it so we will NOT be confused about who we are supposed to care for: ALL people.

And then the one that applies most to today: “Again - you have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago: Don’t make a false solemn pledge, but you should follow through on what you have pledged to the Lord.  But I say to you that you must not pledge at all. You must not pledge by heaven, because it’s God’s throne.  You must not pledge by the earth, because it’s God’s footstool. You must not pledge by Jerusalem, because it’s the city of the great king.  And you must not pledge by your head, because you can’t turn one hair white or black.  Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.” 

He challenged the laws written in this book to say that we are called to LOVE, to go beyond the letter of these laws and move into love. 

I think about the musical Les Miserables.  The police officer in the musical was technically right in having no compassion for the man Jean Valjean who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed his starving sister and her son.  He was technically right in following the law when he pursued Jean Valjean after other minor infractions of his parole.  He was technically right, legally right.  But he was  wrong in every way when we come to understand the laws of God.  The LAW, the one and only LAW is the law of love.  And his actions were anything BUT loving.

None of this is easy.  And it is especially hard when it means that we might lose face as Herod would have done in today’s story if he had gone back on his promise.

There is another story: A long ago time ago in the hills of Quong Zu province, there once lived a revered old monk who was a master of Zen Buddhism. One day he decided that he would make a pilgrimage to a neighboring monastery, and not wishing to make the journey alone, he decided to take along one of his young disciples. They started their journey early the next morning and in the true spirit of Zen each walked along engrossed in his own thoughts, and so they journeyed for many hours without speaking. By mid-day they had come to a small stream and it was here that they noticed a young girl dressed in fine silk, obviously contemplating how best to cross the stream without getting her precious clothes wet. Immediately the old monk walked over to the young girl and in one smooth motion, he picked her up in his arms and walked out into the stream, then after carrying her safely to the other side, he gently put her down and walked on without having said a single word.

His disciple having watched this whole incident was in a state of complete shock, for he knew it was strictly forbidden for a monk to come into physical contact with another person. Quickly, he too crossed the stream, and then ran to catch up with his master, and together they once again walked on in silence. Finally at sunset they made camp and settled down for the night.

The next morning after prayers and meditation the old monk and his disciple once again continued their journey, once again in silence. After many miles, and no longer able to contain his curiosity, the disciple called to his master and said,

"Master may I ask you a question" ?

 "Of course, you may" his master replied, "knowledge comes to those who seek it".

 Respectfully his disciple said, "Yesterday I saw you break one of our most sacred vows when you picked up that young girl and carried her across the stream. How could you do such a thing"?

 His master replied, "That is true, and you are right it is something I should not have done, but you are as guilty as I am" .

 "How so" asked his disciple, "for it was you who carried her across the stream not I" ?

 "I know" replied his master, "but at least on the other side I put her down. You, however, are obviously still carrying her".

But again, for me the decision is bigger than this.  It is not just about breaking an oath.  It is about recognizing that the over-arching law is the one of love.  When we see a situation in which we are called to offer care, that care and the law to do whatever it takes to offer that care, must supersede any other law.  That’s the bottom line, always.  We are called to love.  It’s all that easy.  And it’s all that hard.

Attacking what we don't understand

1 Samuel 8:4-20

Mark 3:20-35

The people of Israel didn’t understand God enough to trust that they could have only God as king and not need a human king.  And when they didn’t understand, they responded by attacking what they didn’t know, demanding something different, refusing to listen to the warnings coming their way. The Pharisees assumed that even though he was actually healing people, Jesus must have been doing this by the power of Satan.  They didn’t understand how Jesus could successfully have driven out the demons, so they attacked and accused him of evil, even in the face of the amazing good he was doing.  Even Jesus’ family, when they didn’t understand his behavior, decided he must have been crazy and tried to get him away from the people. 

We do this too.  When we don’t understand another person’s perspective, or what is happening around us in the community, in our country, in our world, it is so easy to simply attack that which we don’t understand.  If we can vilify the other, then we don’t ever have to understand it.  We can simply discount it as evil or crazy.  How much harder is it to actually listen to another opinion, to actually pay attention to what someone else says just for itself without our preconceived ideas.  How much easier if we don’t have to look, don’t have to listen, and don’t have to be open to learn or to grow when we can just discount the other as evil or crazy or just completely wrong.

We all do this.  No matter where we stand theologically or politically, there are things all of us don’t understand and therefore refuse to even consider.  These may be things that scare us, things that don’t fit in with our vision or our worldview, things that may challenge us at our core, things that make life feel that it might not be the safe, contained, organized world that we know – all of these we may refuse to even consider. I would like to invite you to take a moment and think about what you won’t even entertain.  What will you not allow your mind to even consider as possibly true?  As possibly accurate?  As possibly good? 

I want to remind you that as we see in Jesus, that it is in the unknown, the uncomfortable, that which we would never consider in which we find God.  God shows us this in Jesus, who was completely other than what the people of God, the religious people of the time, expected.  He healed those deemed unworthy and rejected by the people.  He cared for those whom others knew it was illegal by law to even interact with.  He appeared crazy and even evil to the Pharisees, who again were the religiously righteous of the day, and even to his family.  That’s where God is: God is in the unexpected, the unknown, the unseen.  God is in the mystery, those things we don’t understand: those things that are beyond our understanding and sometimes those things we refuse to consider. The Israelites were God’s people but they could not see or accept God as the only king they needed. The Pharisees were the religious people of the day and yet they who were most faithful to the synagogue and the religious laws of the time could not see that the healing Jesus did was by the Spirit.  If we think that we are better than these faithful people, we need to look at ourselves again.  What is it that we block out that God could be saying to us, speaking to us, calling us to notice, see, love, and take in as God’s people?

I shared with you before that Scott Peck describes evil in his book, “People of the Lie.” He has a psychiatric practice, but he is also a strong Christian who believes in the existence of evil, as well as the power of love to confront it, overcome it, and change it.   As he worked with people, both the victims of evil and those who perpetrated it, he came to believe that people who do evil are people who simply cannot accept truth.  They cannot accept the truths of their own sinfulness and they project it out onto others and then try to destroy it in others.  As he puts it himself, “it is characteristic of those who are evil to judge others as evil. Unable to acknowledge their own imperfection, they must explain away their flaws by blaming others. And if necessary, they will even destroy others in the name of righteousness.”  We see this happening on a regular basis: televangelists who condemn and criticize a certain behavior only to be discovered engaging in the very behavior they condemn.  Politicians similarly who push for certain rules only to be found engaging in the behaviors they are working so hard to make illegal.    We see the truth in this as we learn that people like Hitler who may have had Jewish blood himself.  We see this reflected in our literature, such as the way Voldermort was trying to kill anyone who was not “pure blood” when he himself was only half-Wizard.

Dr. Peck also put it this way, “evil is…the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion – in order to avoid spiritual growth.”  And also, “(those who do evil have) a brand of narcissism so total that they seem to lack, in whole or in part, this capacity for empathy…..This narcissism permits them to ignore the humanity of their victims as well….There is only one particular kind of pain they cannot tolerate; the pain of their own conscience, the pain of the realization of their own sinfulness and imperfection….  They never think of themselves as (doing) evil; on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others…evil people are often destructive because they are attempting to destroy evil.  The problem is that they misplace the locus of the evil.  Instead of destroying others, they should be destroying the sickness within themselves.  As life often threatens their self-image of perfection, they are often busily engaged in hating and destroying that life – usually in the name of righteousness.  They are unceasingly engaged in the effort to maintain the appearance of moral purity….  Since the evil, deep down, feel themselves to be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world, they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world’s fault.  Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad.  They project their own evil onto the world.  They never think of themselves as evil; on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others.”

Richard Rohr echoed these ideas in his column, “Jesus: Forgiving Victim.”  He wrote, “Fighters are looking for the evil, the sinner, the unjust one, the oppressor, the bad person "over there." He or she "righteously" attacks, hates, or even kills the wrong-doer, while feeling heroic for doing so (see John 16:2). Philosopher René Girard sees this tendency to scapegoat others as the central story line of human history. Why? Because it works, and it is largely an immediate and an unconscious egoic response… We are all tempted to project our problems on someone or something else rather than dealing with it in ourselves. The zealot--and we've all been one at different times--is actually relieved by having someone to hate, because it takes away his or her inner shame and anxiety and provides a false sense of innocence.  As long as the evil is "over there" and we can keep our focus on changing or expelling someone else … then we feel at peace. …Playing the victim is a way to deal with pain indirectly. You blame someone else, and your pain becomes your personal ticket to power because it gives you a false sense of moral superiority and having been offended. You don't have to grow up, you don't have to pray, you don't have to let go, you don't have to forgive or surrender--you just have to accuse someone else of being worse than you are. And sadly that becomes your very fragile identity, which always needs more reinforcement.   (Another way to deal with our pain is to)… refuse s to live in the real world of shadow and contradiction. (Some) divide the world into total good guys and complete bad guys, a comfortable but untrue worldview of black and white. This approach comprises most fundamentalist and early stage religion. It refuses to carry the cross of imperfection, failure, and sin in itself. It is always others who must be excluded so I can be pure and holy.… These patterns perpetuate pain and violence rather than bring true healing.”

Richard Rohr goes on to explain how Jesus is the opposite of this because he takes our hatred without returning it, nor does it use it to play the victim. He suffers without making the other suffer..

 The thing is that most evil works from a place of fear.  We fear our own sinfulness.  We fear the other out of a place of not knowing them, refusing to really get to know, understand or have compassion for the other, for that which is different.  But as we know, fear leaves no room for beauty or grace or anything truly good.

I found myself thinking about the movie, “The Devil wears Prada”.  The movie’s main character, Andi, starts as a person with goals and integrity.  She wants to be a journalist, and she has written about injustices such as poor work conditions.  She is in a committed relationship and values her time with her friends and family.  Her values do not include high fashion, expensive things, or working to the exclusion of everything else.  She is down-to-earth, centered, and knows where she is heading and what she wants.  When she first applies for the job as Assistant to the Director of Runway Magazine, she is appalled by the value system that surrounds her – the emphasis on accessories that make no real difference to one’s well-being, the insistence on being thin, on looking “right,” on dressing “right.”  But when she takes the job, she finds her values and her identity being slowly pushed, slowly and subtly undermined.  She finds herself giving up more and more of her time with her friends, family and significant other.  She finds herself being pulled into the drama of fast paced work and eventually into valuing the clothing and accessories she didn’t used to care about.  The choices she is faced with – to choose depth and relationships, or to choose appearance and achievement are subtle, but she finds herself choosing for the latter again and again, and she finds herself saying to those who would challenge those choices, “well, I didn’t have a choice!” She says that when she hurts her friend by going in her place to France because the boss asked her to do that.  She says that when she misses her boyfriend’s birthday.  She says it when she has no time to spend with the people who love her.  She loses and gives up more and more, and slips down the slope into being a person who has thrown out her own deeply held values, all with the phrase, “I didn’t have a choice.”  She didn’t realize that she was choosing “evil”, even when she did something that devastated another human, that took away another human’s hopes and dreams.  She told herself that she had no choice because she had to keep her job.  But that lie that she told herself, that the job was the most important thing, that lie led her more and more into “hell”…she lost her friends, she lost her significant other, she lost her sense of self and her values.  She refused to see the sin in her own behavior and projected it outwards, harming others.  As her boyfriend breaks up with her, she receives a phone call from her boss, and she says, “I’m sorry.  I have to answer this,” STILL not realizing she is making a choice.  She couldn’t see evil.  She couldn’t see she had a choice.  She couldn’t look at herself or consider the idea that maybe there was a different choice for her to make.

Bonhoeffer put it this way, “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” 

While the talk of evil or evil people may not be comfortable language for you, I think it is something we have to look at.  We attack what we don’t understand.  We attack what we are UNWILLING to understand – sometimes parts of ourselves that we are uncomfortable with, parts of ourselves that we would deny, parts of ourselves that simply make us uneasy.  But in attacking what we are unwilling to understand, we refuse to confront the sinfulness or errors or bad choices in ourselves, to change it, to grow.  We ignore the opportunities to grow more deeply with God.  We also injure others, we attack good things, as the case of Jesus and the Israelites show us, we attack that which is godly, which is holy, God’s own children who are different from us but whom God still loves.  We attack that which is bringing life to others of God’s people. 

If the Pharisees had been willing to consider that Jesus was a man of God, their lives would have been changed for the better; they would have met God, they may have found healing for their own souls.  If the Israelites were to have relied on God alone to be king, they might have learned faith and trust at a much deeper level, they would not have risked being exploited by their leadership, as Samuel warned them they would be, they might not have found themselves exiled over and over again.  And if we might be willing to consider that which we refuse to consider, we might find ourselves making friends and crossing bridges with those who are different from us, we might find ourselves called into action that helps those we normally don’t even see, we might see God’s face in an unexpected stranger, and get to know God at deeper and fuller levels. 

An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all.  One is Evil.  It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego.  The other is Good.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth.”  The boy thought about it, and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”  The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”

But the good news in this is that there is hope, even when we don’t want to see, even when we don’t choose well.  Because God is a God of love, of healing, and of hope.  And if we turn it all over to God, to really spend time LISTENING to God, there is hope, there is movement, there is possibility for us as well.  Love truly can overcome evil or pain or hate or fear.  We just have to be open, and let God do God’s work within us.  Amen.